When teens rank each other's looks on Facebook

Writer

“Like for rate,” their status updates read. It’s a common enough update among teenagers. And to those of us over 17, “like for rate” means that anyone who likes the poster’s status will be given a 1-10 rating based on their looks.

This relatively new trend was most likely born from “like my status” updates that have been popular for a few years, where teens ask friends to like their status and in return, the original poster will reveal a secret or tell the friend something nice about them.

Now Facebook’s teen population are asking to be rated on their appearances. While a lot of the feedback can be positive (the acronym BMS is often used – it stands for “broke my scale”, meaning “off the charts”), the idea of crowd-sourcing self-esteem is worrying. It doesn’t take a psychologist to see that there is potential for hearts to be broken, names to be called and worse.

I’m currently on maternity leave from my role at a teen girls’ magazine. We talk about the role that social media plays in our readers’ lives a lot. On the one hand, social media is just another way to do the things that teens have always done. There was a list of the hottest girls and boys at my school one year, and while it was on paper and therefore not quite as permanent or public as a Facebook status, it was out there and for those of us who were excluded (about 90 per cent of the student population), it was cruel.

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Rating appearances on Facebook isn’t so different – it is, however, more targeted and more people may see it. And then there’s the idea that social media gives teens new ways to bully and belittle each other. The pervasive nature of Facebook means that it’s difficult to completely avoid (and no, it’s not as simple as shutting your own account down, because your friends will still have pages you can view).

To adults, these status updates seem trivial. To teens, they are not. One of the most important “jobs” for a teenager is trying to figure out where they fit in the world. Needless to say, they take it very seriously.

One of the things that surprised me when I started working with teen readers was their unrelenting earnestness. If they like something, they are completely smitten with it. If they are passionate about something, it is their life’s work. Conversely, if they’re upset, it’s the worst thing they’ve ever experienced.

Part of this may be caused by the fact that teens’ brains operate differently to ours (nope, not the set-up for a joke). Teens use the brain’s amygdala to process emotions, a region associated with instinctual or gut reactions. Adults use the pre-frontal cortex (which doesn’t fully mature until your early twenties), which is responsible for reason, planning and social behaviour. It’s often referred to as the CEO of the brain. Teens don’t have this CEO yet, and so they’re left to work with instinct alone. It’s why they engage in risk-taking behaviour more often than we do, and why they seek validation in public – they see the potential for awesome feedback, not rejection.

In the end, we try to teach our readers to look for validation in meaningful places – and mainly, from themselves. We take pains to tell them that their appearance is not the most important thing about them, and that the images they see in magazines and advertising are carefully constructed over many hours by many different experts.

Still, it’s unrealistic to think that they’ll all suddenly develop incredible body image and stop looking for external evidence of their attractiveness or otherwise. Part of being a teenager is learning to define yourself – it’s why you wanted to get your belly button pierced at 16 – and that can be an incredibly difficult process, especially when you’re told that your concerns (getting tickets to a 1D concert, for instance) are trivial. It’s little wonder teens think it’s easier to ask other people to define them.

7 comments

Good article. Now can someone please tell me what on earth is that thing on the hand of the girl in the photo??

Commenter

Mellah

Date and time

October 28, 2013, 10:29AM

I doesn't matter what it is, we only care what it rates.

Sad though, even deluding themselves that their "friends" are rating them "honestly".

The thing is, they're no longer trying to find out where they fit into the world, they're trying to figure out where they fit into cyberspace. Which, is just a mind game.

That, combined with binge drinking .... I dunno, I can't help but think it's better to just go outside and shoot some hoops.

I wonder if this will leave them unprepared for the actual functioning world.

Commenter

sarajane

Location

melbourne

Date and time

October 28, 2013, 11:02AM

It's The Flying Spaghetti monster. His Noodley goodness.

http://www.venganza.org/category/sightings/

Commenter

Ramen

Date and time

October 28, 2013, 11:48AM

She belongs to the Cult of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and that is their Special Decoder Ring.

Commenter

Bender

Date and time

October 28, 2013, 12:05PM

It's probably because the media, ESPECIALLY magazines catering to teen girls and women, reinforces the fact that in today's society, looks equate to worth. Why wouldn't this spill over into teens seeking validation from their peers based on their looks? They don't know that there's anything else that matters. Even while we're trying to drum into them that looks aren't important, the media is showing them otherwise.

Commenter

Hailstar

Date and time

October 28, 2013, 12:37PM

Facebook is a joke. You can give me all the so-called positives under the sun, but this garbage is causing more problems than you can imagine.

What is wrong with email? You can converse with a person without the world knowing it. Ohhh yeah I forgot.... Thats why these shallow people use facebook in the first place. Showponies.

Wanna talk, pick up a phone and tell me your eating toast.

Commenter

Jeff

Date and time

October 28, 2013, 12:37PM

You can't just blame the media. It's instilled in children by their parents. Continually rating their appearance telling them they look beautiful, praising them for looking good, etc. I'm making a concerted effort to praise my daughter on the effort she puts into things, not on looks and not on outcomes, but it's really tough to do as it requires a real change of mindset